How do I write to NTFS drives on Mac?

I recently bought a Seagate Slim 2TB external drive to store photos from my Macs and Windows PCs. I formatted the drive as NTFS so it could be used for both OSs using Seagate's software. It works perfectly on my MBP, but not on my Mac mini. When I try writing to it from my Mac mini, I get a permissions error saying I have only "read" permission. Googling the issue tells me I need to install a third-party driver that allows writing to an NTFS drive. But I'm not sure if I want to get one. Any ideas on how to fix it? Thanks!

Best Answered by

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Thursday, March 9, 2023

Your Mac mini likely doesn't have the correct NTFS driver needed for writing to the Seagate Slim external drive. Therefore, to enable write access to it, you'll need to install a reliable third-party NTFS for Mac tool on your Mac.

You can try iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. It's one of the fastest NTFS drivers on the market, with support for macOS 13 Ventura to macOS 10.13 High Sierra. You can use it to write, edit, delete, and copy files on Microsoft NTFS-formatted drives from Mac effortlessly.

It will also automount your NTFS drives without requiring you to relaunch the software after a reboot. Click the button below to download it and get the free trial. Test it out to see if it meets your needs.

Download

iBoysoft NTFS for Mac

Rating:4.8

If you'd rather work with a file system that's compatible with both macOS and Windows, you can also reformat the external hard drive on Mac to exFAT.

People Also Ask

External exFAT drive not mounting on Mac

This thread tells you what to do if you find your exFAT external hard drive not mounting on Mac.

Jenny Zeng 9th March 2023

How to fix com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49218 on an APFS external drive?

If you receive 'com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49218' when mounting or repairing your unmountable external drive in Disk Utility, read this thread.

Jenny Zeng 22nd March 2023

How to Fix NTFS Drive Not Working After the macOS Catalina Update?

This post tells you how to fix the NTFS drive not working after the macOS Catalina update.

Vain Rowe 9th March 2023

Recover unmountable APFS partition damaged by the USB dock!

I had recently purchased a new HDD dock, after testing I felt safe to add on the two drives to its bays, unfortunately the dock corrupted my partitions making them unmountable. One of them is APFS.

Amanda Wong 9th March 2023

NTFS external hard drive will not mount after updating to macOS Catalina 10.15.7, how to fix it?

WD My Passport won't mount following the above update and when trying to mount with Disk Utility I get this error (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49221.) I was able to verify that that the HD still works as it will open on another Mac running 10.15.7. Any suggestions or fixes out there?

Jenny Zeng 9th March 2023